Entries from Expedition Dispatches

Saturday, May 18, 2024 - 10:35 pm PT

Everyone seemed to agree that last night was one of the best nights of sleep they've had. Something about a big day, hard work building camp, and the impetus to climb deep inside your bag to hide from the cold at 14,000' made for a good night. We let sun hit the tents and warm things before rousing for breakfast, then strolled back to our cache at 13,500' to retreive the rest of our food and belongings. It was a good active rest mission, stretch the legs but not work too hard. An afternoon of naps and snacks led to a quick fixed line refresher before dinner. We're happily settled in at 14,000' now with all of our stuff and looking for the next opportunity to head up for a trip along the West Buttress to 17,000' camp. That day will be another carry and cache, but we are getting closer to the goal. Everyone is psyched to be up at 14,000' where the living is good and the views endless. We'll touch base tomorrow.

RMI Guide Pete Van Deventer

Saturday, May 18, 2024 - 10:11 pm PT

Another solid day in the books. We woke up to clear skies, and cold temperatures. After a later dinner yesterday, we opted for a Slightly more casual start time. After a quick breakfast of granola and blueberries we packed up about 2/3rds of our group food, fuel, gear, and personal food and started up Ski Hill. After many hours of climbing we ran into Dustin's team digging up their cache around 9,900', and decided that would be a good place to put ours. We unloaded all the gear and food we wouldn't need for the next few days, buried it, and marked it with some wands. Then strapped our now empty sleds to our back and made our way back to the base of Ski Hill. We finished the evening up with the weather and some beef burritos. The plan is to move to 11 camp tomorrow if weather allows. Everyone is doing great on this first few challenging days. Check in tomorrow!

RMI Guide Nikki Champion

Saturday, May 18, 2024 - 4:29 pm PT

Mission accomplished. We had sunny weather with a light, but chilly breeze for our back carry. It took us 15 minutes to get back to our Windy Corner cache and an hour to get back up to our camp in Genet Basin. A good leg stretcher. We will likely rest tomorrow and try to carry to high camp on Monday.

RMI Guide Mike Walter

May 17, 2024 11:54PM PT

Today was super successful. Things were quite warm at camp and looked enticing enough to rouse everyone and start making preparations to leave.
Excitement was in the air as everyone in camp had similar thoughts - whether they were carrying or moving. Teams filtered out of camp uphill, and we made final adjustments, and then shouldered packs and headed up Motorcycle Hill. 
We moved really well - caught a little breeze over the top of squirrel, then kept swinging along the polo field. It was a bit chilly again around Windy Corner, but the wind died on the other side and the oven turned on and we started pulling off layers. 
We cruised into camp and set about building our home for the next several days tough work at 14,200’. Everybody is now recovering horizontally. 
Tomorrow should be a much easier day, dropping back down to grab our cache and returning to camp with all our treasures. 

Pete

May 17, 2024 11:22PM PT

First mountain day in the books. After a pretty grim weather forecast, we had planned to sleep in a bit and have a later breakfast. To our surprise, K2 Aviation called us at 7:30 AM to tell us the weather looked great and to make our way over to the hangar.

By 9 AM, we had changed into our mountain boots and loaded into the plane. After a beautiful flight, we landed at basecamp - unloaded, organized, and rigged up the sleds, buried a basecamp cache for our return, and made our way out onto the lower Kahiltna.

It was a long heavy day - the one day of the trip we carry everything we brought.

Under blue skies, we rolled onto the base of the Ski Hill, built camp, and settled in.

We had a dinner of mac and cheese with bacon and got gear ready to cache tomorrow.

Hoping for another beautiful day, but just glad to be moving.

Check in tomorrow!

RMI Guides Nikki Champion, Leif Bergstrom and Team

May 17, 2024 9:53PM PT

Well, I can't speak for the rest of my team, but my pictures are definitely not doing this place justice. I keep thinking about my sister, who's a professional photographer. She'd lose her mind over the views. (shameless plug - check her out at Alaska Light Photography). So far, the team has participated in some excellent bonding. We've covered important topics like the merits of various dinner bowls, pros and cons of carrying frozen carrots up 2,000 vertical feet, and what types of rare Pokémon would live up here. (Or is it Pokémen? Pokémon’s? Unknowable at 11,000 feet). Time and distance are different up here.  15 minutes can feel like 2 hours. The vastness of the terrain tricks the eye and a camp "just around the corner" is still an hour away. So, we take one step at a time, one breath at a time, and trust that every step is one step closer to the goal we’ve been working towards for months.
We’ll do it all over again tomorrow.

- Sarah and the Team 

The Mt. Rainier Four-Day climb led by RMI Guides Dave Hahn and Sam Hoffman turned around at 11,500 this morning due to deteriorating weather. They are currently enjoying a sunny Camp Muir morning. They will recollect themselves at Camp Muir before their descent back to Basecamp in Ashford this afternoon. Nice work team!

Saturday, May 18, 2024 - 8:55 am PT

We took advantage of good weather yesterday and moved up to the 14,000' Camp. We will head back to retrieve or cache at Windy Corner today.

RMI Guide Mike Walter

Thursday, May 16, 2024

The moment we got out of the tents, it was pretty clear we were going to rest in camp today. Gusts of wind were rolling through camp at irregular intervals, shaking the tents in waves across camp. It wasn't particularly strong, just really noisy. Above, however, it was clear that the wind was much stronger, clouds flew by, and a lenticular hovered over the West Buttress. Below, clouds were thick on the Kahiltna as well. So, we lingered over breakfast, then retreated to the tents for reading, napping, and movie time. It was good timing for a rest day for us anyways.

We'll take a look at it tomorrow and see how we go.

RMI Guide Pete Van Deventer & Team

Welcome to the first dispatch for the May 14th Denali Climb!

After a busy few days, getting to Talkeetna, and spending all day yesterday packing and preparing for the upcoming expedition, we went to bed hoping to fly the following morning.

We woke up early, called K2, and made our way to the hangar by 8 AM, dressed and ready to fly. Spirits were high, and we were optimistic. We loaded the planes and changed into our climbing gear. Unfortunately, the weather closed in on the mountain, and we entered a waiting period.

That waiting period extended into the afternoon and evening. We filled our day with a late morning coffee, walks to the river, a sanity run by Leif and me, and yet another dinner in town.

We will wake up again tomorrow and hope to fly. Until then, we enjoy the warm food and hot showers.

Cheers,

RMI Guide Nikki Champion & Team